white vs. white (Silver Needle)

I ordered a sample of Adagio's white to try up against my Tao of Tea white. Adagio's is a Fujian tea, and ToT is from Hunnan province. I don't get too excited about the "where" in most cases. Possibly this stems from my PacNW roots where we produce some fabulous sparkling wines that cannot be called "champagne" due to the location, (and other wines too.) IMO, location produced does not necessarily indicate lower quality.

ToT gets $3.50/oz, Adagio's is $7/oz.

Brewing:

2g/4oz in glass, 2 minutes.

variables: ToT is not as fresh, it has been in my cupboard for ~ 6 weeks, airtight of course. Adagio sample came today.

Leaves:

Adiago's has more fur, when brewed the leaves end very mushy, and easily smushes into bits with handling. ToT is a drier leaf, but the brewed leaf has more integrity, stands up to examination and seems almost freshly picked.
(ToT left, Adagio right)

Tea:

ToT left, Adagio right

Color differences aside, the ToT has a lighter floral fragrance, a little bit like lilacs or honeysuckle or maybe white clover. The taste of that fragrance lingers for a second after tasting. Adagio's sample has a little more body (for a white,) and the taste is slightly more honeyed with a more lingering aftertaste. It has a sweeter fragrance, but less wildflower, more hothouse flower. Very slightly astringent aftertaste.

Strange note: I get a slight impression of Crayola with the Adagio. It's not offensive, just a little weird.

Overall impression: Unless these were side-by-side, I don't know if I would notice a difference. Certainly there was nothing displeasing about either tea. I would drink either often (and do drink the ToT regularly.) Given that fact, the cost differential becomes much more significant with ToT's version, Hunnan though it is, being 1/2 the price. Coupled with the fact that I can pay a visit to my local leaf room and pick up ToT's version, well... you know my choice.

I'm looking forward to trying this from other vendors as I venture into the black hole of online tea purchases.

Ooo interesting comparison between the two. I haven't tried Adagio's silver needle yet, but I have had the ToT one. The ToT one is rather unique in its own right, the leaves are thinner than most I have seen. Not sure what to make of it, but it just seems a bit different.

Very interesting. When I did a comparative of different Silver Needles last year, Adagio's won the "lilac" award among my selection. It's been a long time since I ordered anything from ToT...perhaps I should bump them up my list.

I just got some Yunnan white tea from Yun Cha on ebay.I should post a pic sometime,the tea was very fresh kinda floral.The buds or "leaves" were quite furry and fairly big,not crumbl at all.

I was also looking on ebay and another seller has some large leaf yunnan white tea and that is just so odd looking-like the white tea but these weird large furry buds.I should try and find the pic of it...just strangest thing I've seen all week (other than brussel sprouts on the vine...but that's not tea related....

I think for my white tea I paid around $6 plus shipping (so lets say 9) for 100 grams.not sure I want to drink white tea every day,but will reorder some later on.

Well, Silver Needle should just be the unopened bud, thus the name. If it was picked too late, it will be in differing stages of leafing out. Certainly Silver Needle is among the most lovely of all teas!

Chip wrote:Well, Silver Needle should just be the unopened bud, thus the name. If it was picked too late, it will be in differing stages of leafing out. Certainly Silver Needle is among the most lovely of all teas!

It is an interesting tea.Still surprized by how light tasting and refreshing it is!

The two white teas are the unopened bud,but I guess I should have been more clear and said the white tea is closed buds but just a lighter colour-and I saw other websites selling it is "snowsprout" white tea.

The other one I have is reg silver needle and again, the buds are closed but they are darker and not as "nice" looking.Well that is maybe the wrong choice of words but they do look very good but not as entirely straight as the whiter one.

Both teas were very good, hard to tell a big difference between both.Not sure which one I would reorder as they are both good and the price difference was only $1, so not much savings for these choices.Sometimes there is a huge difference w cheaper teas,but not these 2 it seems...

I should try and take some pics this week and could take some pics of the dry leaf now at least.

All the names could be confusing. I guess they are not the same tea variety anyway. The silver needle from Hunan, very likely is jun shan silver needle (or some of the genre since jun shan yin zhen is so rare), and it's a yellow tea (sometimes made in green tea format), not a white tea.

White tea from any other province will be very different from the bai hao silver needle (the most well known white tea kind of silver needle) from Fujian. And some tea with "white tea" or "silver needle" in their name may belong to yellow tea or green tea category.

The Yunnan white tea adds more confusion to the nomenclature. Some say it's white tea, some say its green tea, some say it's puerh. Nobody can convince others

gingko wrote:All the names could be confusing. I guess they are not the same tea variety anyway. The silver needle from Hunan, very likely is jun shan silver needle (or some of the genre since jun shan yin zhen is so rare), and it's a yellow tea (sometimes made in green tea format), not a white tea.

White tea from any other province will be very different from the bai hao silver needle (the most well known white tea kind of silver needle) from Fujian. And some tea with "white tea" or "silver needle" in their name may belong to yellow tea or green tea category.

The Yunnan white tea adds more confusion to the nomenclature. Some say it's white tea, some say its green tea, some say it's puerh. Nobody can convince others

Well,from what I know the white teas I bought are all from Yunnan.The seller lives there and sells them as that, so I would assume he is being honest.But to confuse things even more, he mainly sells puerh teas and lives in Pu erh county (or whatever you call it...)

Also, the green and white teas from that seller they are all listed in the same category on one page.So, is what I have now "pu erh white green tea"? lol

I actually emailed the seller to ask about the tea I had bought.Wondering if it was also called Snowsprout or if that was an entirely different white tea.

He replied that what I bought was actually Yunnan white tea, but he also sells "snowsprout" Saiquing tea.So now, there is a 3rd white tea I want to eventually try.I have to get through my 200 grams of white tea first though!

The same seller also has another interesting tea. Black needle tea and apparently it is made from purple tea buds.It has the shape of silver needle but looks dark purple and has no fuzz on it.also turns green in the water and is considered a green tea.I really want to try that one, but it is out of stock for ages now...I should maybe make a separate post about black needle tea, but since this is sort on on the subject of "needle" teas.

Tea and coffee wrote:Also, the green and white teas from that seller they are all listed in the same category on one page.So, is what I have now "pu erh white green tea"? lol

I actually emailed the seller to ask about the tea I had bought.Wondering if it was also called Snowsprout or if that was an entirely different white tea.

He replied that what I bought was actually Yunnan white tea, but he also sells "snowsprout" Saiquing tea.So now, there is a 3rd white tea I want to eventually try.I have to get through my 200 grams of white tea first though!

All of these could be reasonable names The categorization of green/white/yellow/red/oolong/puerh started quite recently when there became a "science" about tea. Before that, people would call TGY "red tea" and regard yellow tea as an intentional accident of green tea. The tea names are always confusing and don't seem much clearer with the modern categorization system

From my comparing the two white teas the Yunnan white has straighter, lighter buds.The silver needle are smaller (still big though) and some have the tiny bit of leaf starting at the bottom but it is kind of hard to see when leaves are dry.The Yunnan white, more expensive one does not have that at all.

I am very curious now to try other whites to see how they compare.I signed up for the Facebook tea tasting and the round 2 is supposed to have a white tea.That should be interesting hopefully.